


Oblivion

by midnightsvn



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Canon, Edward's POV, F/M, Heavy Angst, as if MS wasn't painful enough i now present to you the motherload of all angst: NM in EPOV, new moon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightsvn/pseuds/midnightsvn
Summary: I had no desire to find any shore, to regain any solace; I knew the only antidote to this pain was oblivion.A multi-chapter retelling of New Moon from Edward's perspective.
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	1. PARTY

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at an actual telling of the events of New Moon from Edward's perspective. I've been working on it for a couple months now, and to tell you the truth, being inside Edward's head is _rough_. I hope you enjoy!

"Oblivion - what a blessing...for the mind to dwell a world away from pain."  
— Sophocles, _Oedipus Rex_

I heard Emmett’s Jeep rumbling down the long driveway a few seconds before I heard the exuberant tenor of his thoughts about returning home, supremely excited for tonight’s events. He always enjoyed traveling with Rose—and the privacy it afforded them as a couple—but there was only so long a time he could go without beating anyone in a wrestling match before he became too antsy. I chuckled at my brother. I’d missed him, and maybe I would humor his next invitation for a match, even if it was one I would most likely lose.

I wondered, though, what Rosalie’s feelings were about being summoned back for a birthday party—a _human’s_ birthday party, a human she’d made her distaste for quite clear. I was surprised she came home at all. I had half-expected Emmett to return alone. Perhaps Alice had gotten creative, bribing her with some rare piece of vintage jewelry or threatening to brutalize the red M3 in the garage. Whichever it was, I didn’t care; it was still plain to me that Rosalie no longer wanted to behave as my sister. I was glad she was here only for the fact that Bella would be upset at another snub from her if she refused to attend tonight’s festivities. 

The party was entirely Alice’s idea, of course. I knew Bella was going to fervidly protest any proceeding thrown in her honor, especially one that celebrated her _aging_ , as she called it. But Alice got her way for the same reason she convinced me to take Bella to prom. If I wanted Bella to have every human experience, then I had to let my family do this for her, even if she thought it akin to torture. Eighteen was an important milestone, after all. And I happened to be of the controversial opinion that the anniversary of her birth was cause for celebration. I shivered even just to think of what my existence would be without Bella, if she’d never been born, never been thrown into my path like a wrecking ball…. If I’d never learned what it was to love her as I did, so consumingly and so thoroughly…. How utterly blind I had been before her…. Yes, her existence was cause for celebration indeed.

It was nearly time to leave for school, so I made my way down to the first floor. Esme was hugging Em and Rosalie in welcome in the foyer. Alice appeared ready to leave, but was still prattling on to Jasper about a list of the materials she would need for tonight’s party. As he was no longer pretending to be a student at Forks High School nor was he fresh off a flight from Morocco, Jasper had the task of making the trip to Port Angeles today to pick up the cake and buy flowers and decorations. I sighed. My pleas toward Alice to keep it simple had obviously fallen on deaf ears.

“You’re also supposed to buy a stereo for Bella’s truck,” Alice told Jasper. He stood calmly with hands in his pockets, nodding along to each of Alice’s fastidious instructions. “It’ll be your joint gift for her. Yes, Emmett, I know it was _your_ idea.

“Which is why Rosalie will be in charge of wrapping the box and writing a nice card that says it’s from the three of you. Right, Rose?” Alice asked in a bossy tone, eyebrows upturned.

Rosalie rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

Despite the attitude, Alice seemed appeased. She kissed Jasper goodbye and went outside to the car ahead of me. I took a second to greet Emmett with a hug, while Rosalie acknowledged me with a mere nod. I waved farewell to Esme, who wished Alice and I a good day at school in her thoughts. Carlisle had already left for his shift at the hospital, but tonight, it would be a full house. Birthdays were rare for us, to say the least, and the house itself seemed abuzz with the excitement.

The parking lot was still almost empty when we arrived. But of course, who wanted to forego sleep to be early for _high school?_ Granted, it was marginally less like purgatory to me now since I’d pulled the strings to spend almost all my classes with Bella, but it was still high school. I looked forward to being on a college campus again, and with Bella, no less. Dartmouth would be nice, or perhaps somewhere in upstate New York…. But Bella only considered college as some sort of backup plan. Our impasse on the matter of her mortality was still very much that—an impasse. And she was adamant about how under no circumstances would I ever be allowed to pay for her college tuition. I had to find some way to convince her to see things my way, _especially_ about mortality. Alice’s vision from last spring, where an older Bella sat with me on her father’s worn sofa and Alice sat on the floor leaning against Bella’s leg, had not solidified much. It was still as flimsy as ever while the other vision of a stony Bella with burgundy eyes only became clearer with each passing day. Alice thought I was frustrated with her for the things she saw, but it was not so much frustrating as it was devastating. My singular purpose was to protect Bella’s life, not only from the earthly dangers in this life but also from whatever dangers waited in the next one.

I stepped out and leaned against the side of the Volvo, Alice following me and doing the same. In her hands she held a gift-wrapped CD case—a CD of my compositions that she’d helped me record and then burn onto the disc. It had taken us the better part of the past weekend. We had set up a temporary home recording studio in the living room. It wasn’t exactly possible to do it all without spending anything, as was Bella’s stipulation for any gifts from me, but I was sure that this wouldn’t be the last time one of us would need a home studio. I knew Emmett was sitting on some sort of prank album for Jasper, determined to turn Plato’s _Republic_ into a rap musical. Because of that, I could bill the expenses to Carlisle, and I technically _didn’t_ spend a dime. I’d become quite talented at finding loopholes these past six months.

Alice was watching the very near future for Bella’s arrival, and I saw that she would be here in under a minute. Right on cue, I heard the familiar scream of her truck’s engine as it turned onto the street. Finally, after much chugging and rumbling, the laggard truck pulled into the parking lot, and my entire body sought to spring into action. Being away from Bella for any length of time was an ordeal I never relished. But Alice showed me in her mind that she wanted to greet Bella first, and I conceded, staying behind to lean against the car a little longer.

Bella got out of her truck, slamming the door shut and sporting a surly expression. I almost smiled—did she hate this day _that_ much? Alice hopped forward to meet her, held out the gift we’d made, and greeted her with a cheerful “Happy birthday, Bella!”

“Shh!” Bella hissed in a whisper, looking furtively around the parking lot for any prying eyes or ears. Then Alice asked in an excited tone if she wanted to open her present, earning a weak protest from Bella. They talked about Charlie and Reneé’s presents for her—a camera and a scrapbook, respectively—while they walked toward me. Alice had seen Bella’s parents’ decision on the gifts and resolved that we should be allowed to ignore the moratorium on gift-giving as well.

I offered my hand to Bella as they reached me, and she put her hand in mine. The warmth from the small contact filled me with unrivaled relief, and I squeezed her fingers in mine softly. I heard her heart skip a beat, and I smiled.

I lifted the hand not holding hers to trace a fingertip around her soft, warm lips. “So, as discussed, I am not allowed to wish you a happy birthday, is that correct?”

“Yes. That is correct,” she said simply.

“Just checking,” I sighed. I ran a hand through my messy hair in a mock display of frustration. “You _might_ have changed your mind. Most people seem to enjoy things like birthdays and gifts.” It was utterly ridiculous, but we’d had the argument so many times that I didn’t want to bother rehashing it today.

Alice had other ideas, though; I heard her twinkling laugh as she said, “Of course you’ll enjoy it. Everyone is supposed to be nice to you today and give you your way, Bella. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Getting older,” Bella replied quickly, sounding dejected. My face hardened. I wished Alice hadn’t brought it up. Today was supposed to be a happy day. I did not want to taint it by letting Bella get fixated on the idea of her aging. 

“Eighteen isn’t very old,” Alice said in a placating tone. “Don’t women usually wait till they’re twenty-nine to get upset over birthdays?” 

“It’s older than Edward,” Bella muttered, sounding even more dejected. I sighed. How could I ever make her realize that her age, her physical appearance, and other shallow considerations had never mattered to me? All that mattered, all that would _ever_ matter, was that she was alive and healthy and human.

“Technically,” Alice said, conceding the point. “Just by one little year, though…. What time will you be at the house?”

“I didn’t know I had plans to be there.”

“Oh, be fair, Bella!” Alice whined back. “You aren’t going to ruin all our fun like that, are you?”

“I thought my birthday was about what _I_ want,” Bella said, perfectly obstinate.

“I’ll get her from Charlie’s right after school,” I said to Alice, cutting their argument short. It would’ve gone on all day if I let it. Then Bella said she had to work, and Alice smugly explained that she’d made the arrangements with Mrs. Newton already. Grasping for a last excuse, Bella talked about watching the assigned movie for our English class. I rolled my eyes, knowing how much she already knew _Romeo & Juliet _ by heart. 

They kept arguing until Alice decided she had to resort to making threats. “This can be easy, or this can be hard, Bella, but one way or the other—”

I rolled my eyes at my sister and interrupted the cheap threat. “Relax, Alice. If Bella wants to watch a movie, then she can. It’s her birthday.”

“So there.” It was Bella’s turn to be smug now, but I wasn’t quite finished yet.

“I’ll bring her over around seven. That will give you more time to set up,” I continued saying to Alice. The betrayed look on Bella’s face made Alice laugh.

“Sounds good. See you tonight, Bella! It’ll be fun, you’ll see.” Then she grinned, kissed Bella’s cheek in farewell, and skipped off away to her first class. Bella started to launch into a protest, but I placed a finger against her soft lips to cut her off. We were going to be late for class. 

School was as indescribably dull as always, made bearable only because Bella was usually at my side. In the one class we didn’t have together—sixth-period Calculus with Mr. Varner—I did what I’d done the previous school year, watching Bella through the eyes of the other students around her. The afternoon passed in a blur, and when it was time to leave, I walked with Bella to her truck and held the passenger-side door open so she could climb in. Alice was driving the Volvo home today so she could get started on decorating for the party.

It was drizzling now, and I worried that Bella would get a cold, but she remained standing there with her arms folded across her chest. “It’s my birthday, don’t I get to drive?”

“I’m pretending it’s not your birthday, just as you wished,” I stated, hoping she would get out of the rain. Carlisle would be unhappy with me if Bella managed to contract bronchitis under my watch.

“If it’s not my birthday, then I don’t have to go to your house tonight…”

I sighed internally. That was not something I could concede to her today. “All right.” I closed the passenger door and walked to the driver’s side, motioning for her to get inside. “Happy birthday.”

She shushed me softly, still against anyone else finding out it was her birthday, but between the dwindling cars in the lot and the sheeting rain, there weren't many souls around to hear. She finally climbed into the truck, and I closed the door, walking quickly to get in beside her on the passenger’s side.

In the car, I fiddled with the radio, aware of the gift my siblings were planning to give her this evening. “Your radio has horrible reception,” I commented in a disappointed tone.

Bella frowned, but kept her eyes focused on the road. It was a point of contention whenever I pointed out her beloved truck’s multitudinous shortcomings. “You want a nice stereo? Drive your own car,” she retorted. I tamped down the smile that threatened to spread across my face. Even if Bella tried to refuse the stereo or pretend she didn’t want it, I knew she would appreciate the gift.

The rain had taken a rare break once we arrived in front of the Swan residence. Now that Bella was no longer at risk of crashing the truck at the slightest contact with me, I reached over to cradle her face in my icy hands, making sure my grip was gentle and controlled. 

“You should be in a good mood, today of all days,” I murmured to her, enjoying the way her breathing became uneven whenever I was close.

“And if I don’t want to be in a good mood?” she asked.

“Too bad,” I replied in a whisper, knowing exactly what would remedy her low spirits. I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips, and as I lingered against her warmth, I thought of myself as an addict, a junkie. Only the effects of _my_ drug were just as powerful as the first time, just as intoxicating. There were no waning highs here—the touch of my lips to hers still held the potency of a freshly-exploded sun. 

Bella seemed to agree, and in one ardent move, she had her arms around the nape of my neck and was kissing me with renewed fervor. She often tested the boundaries I had established for the physical aspect of our relationship. Though her life hung in the balance, she was the one who placed too much stock on my control. I smiled despite myself as I drew away from her welcome advances. The only thing more overpowering than my desire for her was my desire to keep her alive.

“Be good, please,” I exhaled softly, my face still close to her cheek. I pressed another quick kiss to her lips before I slowly drew away, placing her arms on top of her stomach.

I could hear the accelerated beating of her heart as she put a hand against her chest. “Do you think I’ll ever get better at this?” she mused. “That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?”

“I really hope not,” I said with a smirk. Her racing pulse in reaction to my touch was constant, concrete proof that she wanted me as much as I wanted her. It was still hard to believe that her physiological responses around me were born of desire and not fear. I would always be grateful for the glitch that I suspected existed somewhere in her genetic makeup, allowing her to ignore the natural instincts of self-preservation that functioned as normal in every other human…. Or there _was_ no glitch, and the explanation was simply that she loved me more than I deserved. I would always be grateful for that, too.

Bella rolled her eyes at my smugness and then dragged me into the house to watch _Romeo & Juliet _. I positioned myself on the couch to wait for her while she loaded the DVD into the player and skipped through the film’s opening credits. When she sat on the edge of the couch, I pulled her against my chest instead, wanting her close. For the thousandth time, I wished I was warm and human like her. I wished I could hold her without causing her discomfort. I took the blanket draped across the back of the sofa and placed it around her shoulders, protecting her from my cold body.

“You know, I’ve never had much patience with Romeo,” I remarked.

Bella shot me an affronted look. “What’s wrong with Romeo?”

“Well, first of all, he’s in love with this Rosaline—don’t you think it makes him seem a little fickle? And then, a few minutes after their wedding, he kills Juliet’s cousin. That’s not very brilliant. Mistake after mistake. Could he have destroyed his own happiness any more thoroughly?” I rolled my eyes at the stupidity.

When I finished with my little rant, she sighed and kept her eyes trained on the television. “Do you want me to watch this alone?”

I smiled at her temper, always so easily stoked. I didn’t mind watching the film another time—my annoyance with Romeo notwithstanding—when it gave me the opportunity to observe her as she watched one of her favorite works of literature on screen. “No, I’ll mostly be watching you, anyway. Will you cry?” I wondered, idly tracing circles on her forearm.

“Probably… if I’m paying attention,” she said.

“I won’t distract you then,” I reassured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Without much else to do, I focused on reciting Romeo’s lines in Bella’s ear, hoping it didn’t count as me being distracting. She started crying only when Juliet woke to find Romeo already dead at her side, and I had to chuckle. Bella looked quite beautiful when she cried.

“I’ll admit, I do sort of envy him here,” I said matter-of-factly, wiping away some of her tears with a lock of her hair. 

“She’s very pretty,” she sniffed. 

I scoffed. She was being absurd again. “I don’t envy him the _girl_ —just the ease of the suicide.” I kept my voice light and teasing. “You humans have it so easy! All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts….” 

“What?” She sounded horrified.

I rushed to explain, to make her understand. “It’s something I had to think about once, and I knew from Carlisle’s experience that it wouldn’t be simple. I’m not even sure how many ways Carlisle tried to kill himself in the beginning… after he realized what he’d become….” I forced my tone to become light again. “And he’s clearly still in excellent health.”

Bella turned around to face me and demanded, “What are you talking about? What do you mean, this is something you had to think about once?”

“Last spring, when you were… nearly killed…” I inhaled deeply, trying to push away the memories of our macabre trip to Phoenix. The glaring sun, the crowded Arizona freeways… The shards of broken glass, the pools of blood... Bella as she writhed on the floor in pain. Carlisle’s calm, unemotional voice as he worked to stitch her up. The unimaginable taste of Bella’s blood on my tongue. The smell of smoke and gasoline as the ballet studio burned. Bella on the hospital bed, unconscious and drugged for days. The video camera and the little lemonade bottle cap pulverizing to dust in my hands. The deserted chapel where I’d prayed to a God I wasn’t sure would listen—or could still listen—to me. 

I tried unsuccessfully to keep my grip on levity. “Of course I was trying to focus on finding you alive, but part of my mind was making contingency plans. Like I said, it’s not as easy for me as it is for a human.”

Absentmindedly, Bella ran her fingers over the crescent scar on her hand, and shook her head as if to shake out the bad memories. Not for the first time, I wished I could take the pain of remembrance away from her. I would bear it all for her if I could—she deserved none of it while I deserved all of it. “Contingency plans?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to live without you,” I said flatly. It was the truth. Didn’t she know how unendurable a world without her in it would be for me? “But I wasn’t sure how to do it—I knew Emmett and Jasper would never help… so I was thinking maybe I would go to Italy and do something to provoke the Volturi.”

Death at the hands of the Volturi would not be a pleasant affair, but it was likely my only option, once my whole purpose for living and remaining on this Earth was gone. I knew there was no afterlife for our kind, and I wasn’t sure _death_ was even the right word. But once Bella had lived out her long, mortal life, as she was _meant_ to do, there was no reason for me to remain and suffer the torture of her loss. Oblivion would be the only mercy.

“What is a Volturi?” she demanded again.

“The Volturi are a family,” I explained, thinking of the garish painting that looked out of place in my father’s study—a gift from our ancient and distant vampire overlords that Carlisle hadn’t been able to refuse. “A very old, very powerful family of our kind. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America—do you remember the story?”

“Of course I remember.” Her gaze seemed far away, and though I couldn’t read her mind, I wagered she was thinking back to the first time I’d taken her to our home, and the wall of paintings I’d shown her. I remembered the stubborn set of her chin as she informed me that she wasn’t going to run away. That there were no truths horrible enough to make her forsake me. 

“Anyway, you don’t irritate the Volturi,” I continued. “Not unless you want to die—or whatever it is we do.” I made my voice sound flat, bored. I didn’t want to scare her. 

Her eyes widened as she realized the weight of my words, and she took my face in her hands, voice frantic as she said, “You must never, never, never think of anything like that again! No matter what might ever happen to me, you are _not allowed_ to hurt yourself!”

“I’ll never put you in danger again, so it’s a moot point.”

“ _Put_ me in danger! I thought we’d established that all the bad luck is my fault?” The anger in her voice intensified. “How dare you even think like that?”

“What would you do, if the situation were reversed?” I asked her, imagining another reality where I was the helpless one. I _wished_ I could be helpless. My only love would be safer for it.

“That’s not the same thing,” she replied stubbornly, and I chuckled. 

“What if something did happen to you?” Her face became paler as she contemplated this. “Would you want me to go _off_ myself?” she asked harshly.

My face contorted—why were we trying to live out our very own hypothetical _Romeo & Juliet _ scenarios? Maybe I shouldn’t have let her watch the film today. “I guess I see your point… a little. But what would I do without you?”

“Whatever you were doing before I came along and complicated your existence,” Bella said. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You make that sound so easy,” I sighed, exasperated. I wasn’t doing _anything_ before she came along and lent meaning to my life.

“It should be. I’m not really that interesting.”

I didn’t know whether I should’ve laughed or cried. Of course now I could never mention my ultimate plan for oblivion once I lost her for good. I was a liar, a monster, and a hypocrite to boot. And it would be futile to press the argument now, especially as I heard Charlie nearing the house. “Moot point,” I told her.

I straightened into a more proper position, depositing Bella on the seat cushion next to me. “Charlie?” she asked, and I smiled in affirmation. She insisted on holding my hand as we heard Charlie’s police cruiser take its place in the driveway. Charlie entered the house with a wide grin on his face and a box of pizza in his hands. I politely declined the invitation to join them for dinner as I usually did; Charlie never questioned it anymore.

Once they were finished eating, I turned to address Charlie. “Do you mind if I borrow Bella for the evening?” 

Bella’s expression looked hopeful, thinking perhaps Charlie wouldn’t allow her to celebrate her birthday with us, but his thoughts were already occupied by the prospect of a long night in front of the television watching the Mariners game. Bella visibly deflated, and I might have laughed if I knew she wouldn’t try to push or punch me in retaliation, hurting herself in the process.

Charlie picked up the camera and tossed it, intending for Bella to catch it—it barely grazed her finger before it was descending to the floor. I seized it before it could bounce against the linoleum tiles.

“Nice save,” Charlie remarked. Then he turned to Bella. “If they’re doing something fun at the Cullens’ tonight, Bella, you should take some pictures. You know how your mother gets—she’ll be wanting to see the pictures faster than you can take them.”

“Good idea, Charlie.” I placed the camera in Bella’s hand. 

She directed the lens at me and took the first shot. “It works.”

“That’s good. Hey, say hi to Alice for me. She hasn’t been over in a while,” Charlie said, frowning.

Bella raised an eyebrow. “It’s been three days, Dad…. I’ll tell her.” Charlie had grown particularly fond of my sister last spring after she supported Bella in recovering from her injuries. He _loved_ Alice—me, he only tolerated.

“Okay. You kids have fun tonight.” That was clearly the last of the conversation anyone would wheedle out of Charlie tonight; he was already walking to the living room to turn on the TV.

I grinned triumphantly and hauled Bella outside to the truck. I opened the passenger door for her, and she jumped in without argument. I got into the driver’s seat and drove the geriatric Chevy north across town, wishing it could be speedier. The engine creaked and groaned as I pushed it barely past fifty.

“Take it easy,” Bella cautioned me, protective of her truck.

“You know what you would love? A nice little Audi coupe. Very quiet, lots of power…” For a moment, I daydreamed about a world where Bella would let me give her a car as a present. Maybe someday…. I tried not to pout and focused on the road instead, knowing how much it unsettled her when I turned away from the windshield so I could look at her more clearly. 

“There’s nothing wrong with my truck,” she said adamantly. “And speaking of expensive nonessentials, if you know what’s good for you, you didn’t spend any money on birthday presents.”

“Not a dime.” _Technically._

“Good.”

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked, lacing my voice with pleasantness.

“That depends on what it is.”

I sighed. Always so difficult. “Bella, the last real birthday any of us had was Emmett in 1935. Cut us a little slack, and don’t be too difficult tonight. They’re all very excited.”

“Fine, I’ll behave,” she said with a shrug.

Then I remembered Bella was unaware we had perfect attendance for her party tonight. “I probably should warn you…”

“Please do.”

“When I say they’re all excited… I do mean _all_ of them.” I was still a little shocked Rosalie had agreed to return, but I wasn’t about to mention that. It would only aggravate Bella’s anxiety about tonight.

“Everyone?” she asked with a gasp caught in her throat. “I thought Emmett and Rosalie were in Africa.” 

“Emmett wanted to be here,” I said.

“But… Rosalie?”

“I know, Bella. Don’t worry, she’ll be on her best behavior.” I knew Rosalie didn’t hold much respect for me or Bella, but she respected Carlisle and Esme. She wouldn’t be rude when our parents were hosting a party. 

Bella remained silent in the passenger seat, and I thought it best to shift the conversation elsewhere. “So, if you won’t let me get you the Audi, isn’t there anything that you’d like for your birthday?”

“You know what I want,” she whispered.

I tried to tamp down the frustration that bubbled inside me. She could ask me for anything— _anything_ in the world—but that. Anything but the future that stole her life and her soul from her. 

“Not tonight, Bella. Please,” I implored.

“Well, maybe Alice will give me what I want,” she said in a petulant tone.

I couldn’t help the deep growl that escaped out of my mouth. Probably because I knew Alice was the one who had both the insanity and the audacity to defy my wishes and give Bella the blackest of gifts. “This isn’t going to be your last birthday, Bella.” That was my promise, to her, to myself, and to any faraway saints or deities who waited to welcome her immortal soul back home.

“That’s not fair!” Bella yelled, resolute.

I clenched my teeth together and tried not to grind the steering wheel into dust.

We arrived at the house—every light on the first and second floors was lit brightly, and outside on the porch hung a long line of gleaming Japanese lanterns. Giant pink roses rested in giant bowls on each step of the stairs leading to the front doors.

Bella groaned at the sight, and I breathed deeply to regain control over myself. “This is a party,” I reminded her. “Please try to be a good sport.”

“Sure,” she muttered in response.

I stepped out of the car and quickly circled around to the passenger side to open Bella’s door for her. I held out my hand so she could take it.

“I have a question,” she said, hesitating in her seat.

I eyed her suspiciously, waiting. “If I develop this film,” she began, tossing the camera back and forth between her hands, “will you show up in the picture?”

I laughed uproariously. I took her hand to help her out of the car, led her up the stairs, and opened the door to the house. My family was waiting for us in the living room, and when Bella entered, they all chimed simultaneously, “Happy birthday, Bella!” The birthday girl, of course, blushed and looked down shyly.

Alice had gone overboard, even for her standards. The entire room was covered with wide, pink candles and deep crystal bowls filled with more pink roses. Next to my piano was a table covered with a white tablecloth, a huge pink birthday cake resting on it. The display was completed with a stack of white glass plates and silver-wrapped gifts in the corner of the table.

I knew Bella’s anxiety would be through the roof at seeing the lurid decorations, so I wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head.

Carlisle and Esme were the closest and were first to approach Bella. Esme, lovely in a lavender cocktail dress, hugged Bella gingerly and kissed her forehead. Carlisle draped an arm over Bella’s shoulders and smiled as he mock-whispered, “Sorry about this, Bella. We couldn’t rein Alice in.”

Rosalie and Emmett were there next. Emmett was grinning widely. “You haven’t changed at all!” he said, pretending to sound disappointed. “I expected a perceptible difference, but here you are, red-faced just like always.”

“Thanks a lot, Emmett.”

Emmett laughed as Bella blushed even redder. _I forgot how entertaining that was_ , he thought. “I have to step out for a second. Don’t do anything funny while I’m gone.”

“I’ll try,” Bella said.

Alice broke free of Jasper’s hand and bounced forward to meet us. Jasper hung back, maintaining a safe distance from Bella, but he smiled at her in greeting. 

“Time to open presents,” Alice said excitedly and dragged Bella away from me to the table. 

Bella protested unsuccessfully once more to the idea of receiving presents. “Alice, I know I told you I didn’t want anything—”

“But I didn’t listen,” Alice interrupted, took the camera out of Bella’s hands, and replaced it with the big box that was Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie’s present.

I knew the box was empty and that Emmett was inside Bella’s truck right at that moment installing the brand-new stereo, but we all let Bella tear off the wrapping paper, revealing the missing contents of the box.

“Um… thanks,” Bella said, trying to hide her confusion. 

Rosalie was unable to help a smile, and Jasper laughed. “It’s a stereo for your truck,” he clarified. “Emmett’s installing it right now so that you can’t return it.”

“Thanks, Jasper, Rosalie,” she said, a big grin on her face. Then, louder for Emmett’s benefit—“Thanks, Emmett!” My brother’s raucous laugh echoed from the truck, and Bella laughed along with him.

“Open mine and Edward’s next!” Alice said, holding out the wrapped CD case to Bella.

She turned around to shoot me a death glare. “You promised.”

Then, Emmett returned from Bella’s truck, running into the living room. “Just in time!” Jasper came closer than he usually dared to watch the gift-opening ceremonials, too.

“I didn’t spend a dime,” I assured Bella. I brushed some stray hairs out of her face and tucked them gently behind her ear.

“Give it to me,” she told Alice with a resigned sigh.

Emmett chuckled gleefully. Bella accepted the wrapped square from Alice, and she slipped her finger under the edge of the wrapping paper and swiped it out from under the tape.

“Shoot,” Bella mumbled, and when she pulled out her finger, I saw that she’d cut it against the edge of the paper.

One single drop of blood seeped out of the miniscule cut. But one single drop was more than enough.

Time seemed to freeze as our celebration abruptly shifted into a nightmarish tableau.

I saw Jasper’s intent to attack a split second before he actually sprung his muscles into action.

“No!” I roared, throwing myself in front of Bella without thinking, and the force flung her backwards into the table. I heard the sounds of shattering crystal and squished cake as she landed amidst the mess on the floor. I didn’t turn to survey the damage.

Jasper crashed against me, snarling and snapping his teeth in an attempt to get past me. His eyes were frenzied, no longer exhibiting any signs that he recognized me as his brother or that we weren’t supposed to hurt humans. He was a predator.

Emmett acted just as quickly and grabbed Jasper’s arms, restraining him even as Jasper pushed and pushed to get free. I growled back in Jasper’s face. I would not allow Bella to be hurt here. This was our _home_. She was safe here. She had to be safe here.

Another slow, horrifying second passed as the vampires in the room collectively realized the smell of blood in the air was too sweet and overwhelming as to have come from one little paper cut. 

I turned around, finally seeing that Bella must have broken her fall into the jagged shards of glass scattered on the floor by the piano. Fresh, bright red blood was pulsating out of her arm and dripping onto Esme’s beige carpet.

This couldn’t be happening. Why was this happening? Why couldn’t the catastrophes ever end?

Carlisle’s calm voice broke through the waves of despair threatening to take hold of me and ordered Emmett and Rosalie to get Jasper outside. The smell of Bella’s blood transported me back to last spring when we’d almost been too late… It brought back the inevitable memory of the sweet, devastating taste of her blood. Venom pooled in my mouth and I felt even more disgusted with myself, remembering how I’d never wanted to stop. How I almost didn’t stop.

I stopped breathing and crouched in a defensive position over Bella as Emmett and Rosalie struggled to get a frenzied Jasper out of the house and away from the blood. Esme followed my siblings out into the yard, murmuring an apology to Bella. I didn’t relax my stance as Carlisle approached.

 _It’s fine, son. She’ll be fine, but I need to treat her wounds._ His thoughts had a calm but authoritative tone. “Let me by, Edward,” he said aloud.

 _It’s all right. It’s fine_ , he repeated in his mind. I nodded slowly, still holding my breath, and let him through. He knelt beside Bella to examine her arm, whose face was frozen in shock.

Alice reappeared from somewhere, offering Carlisle a towel, but he refused it. “Too much glass in the wound.” He ripped a thin scrap of fabric from the white tablecloth instead and formed a tourniquet above Bella’s elbow.

“Bella, do you want me to drive you to the hospital, or would you like me to take care of it here?” Carlisle asked softly.

“Here, please,” Bella whispered back. No doubt she didn’t want Charlie to find out about this.

“I’ll get your bag,” Alice said helpfully. I could see in her thoughts the warring desires to stay and help with Bella or to go and check on Jasper.

“Let’s get her to the kitchen table,” Carlisle said to me. I lifted Bella into my arms and carried her to the kitchen while Carlisle kept applying pressure on Bella’s arm.

“How are you doing, Bella?” Carlisle asked.

“I’m fine,” Bella said, always the brave one. But I didn’t want her to have to be brave.

Alice already had Carlisle’s bag on the table, and I deposited Bella gently into a chair while Carlisle sat on another. He began working on the wound straight away.

I forced myself to watch Carlisle meticulously working to get the little bloody shards of glass out of Bella’s arm. I still wasn’t breathing. The dry blaze of the fire in my throat only became worse the longer I watched, but I was determined to stay with Bella. I couldn’t even hold her hand when she winced away from the sight of her own blood.

“Just go, Edward,” Bella sighed.

“I can handle it,” I insisted. She shouldn’t be thinking of _my_ pain. The fire wasn’t anything I hadn’t contended with before.

“You don’t need to be a hero,” she informed me. “Carlisle can fix me up without your help. Get some fresh air.”

“I’ll stay,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I couldn’t offer a comforting touch to her hand, or a soothing kiss to her hair, but I could stay with her. It was the least I could do.

“Why are you so masochistic?” Bella grumbled.

“Edward, you may as well go find Jasper before he gets too far. I’m sure he’s upset with himself, and I doubt he’ll listen to anyone but you right now,” Carlisle said. _Please, Edward,_ he added in his thoughts. _Bella will be fine with me. Find your brother. He must be tortured over this._ That made two of us, then.

“Yes,” Bella readily agreed. “Go find Jasper.”

“You might as well do something useful,” Alice added, but in her mind, she was contrite. _Tell him I’ll be with him as soon as Carlisle’s done dressing Bella’s wounds._

They were all trying to banish me from the room, even though I was determined to sit through it. What finally convinced me to go was Bella looking worriedly at me, observing how I hadn’t taken a breath since she’d cut herself. If I were out of sight, maybe she would worry about herself for once.

I turned and ran out the kitchen door into the dark moonlit forest to find the rest of my family, wishing—like Bella had so many times today—that we hadn’t bothered to throw a party at all.


	2. THE SIGN

“The water’s dark and deep inside this ancient heart / You’ll always be a part of me / Goodnight, my angel / Now it’s time to dream / And dream how wonderful your life will be / Someday your child may cry, and if you sing this lullaby / Then in your heart, there will always be a part of me.” — Billy Joel, _Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)_

I had run out of time.

The last grains of sand in the hourglass were falling to the bottom, and I couldn’t deny it anymore. I was out of time. I’d never deluded myself into thinking I could stay with Bella forever…. But I had become an expert at stalling, at ignoring that I was on borrowed time. That I was supposed to be gathering my strength… That I was waiting for the sign… It seemed evil fate wanted to remind me of its sense of humor again by proving me a liar on one more count—hadn’t I promised Bella just this afternoon that I would never put her in danger again? It would be comical if it weren’t so devastating.

I should have taken more precautions. I should have told my family to hunt before the party, I should have made Alice forego wrapping the gifts at all, I should have done a million other things…. But no amount of safeguarding would be able to solve the plainest, most fundamental problem: that I didn’t belong in Bella’s life. None of this was normal. None of this was good for Bella. I had never been good for her. Worse than that, it wasn’t only her earthly life I was endangering. I was risking her soul, too, the longer I stayed with her. How could I ever do right by her now without hurting her in some way? How could I claim to love her when all I brought into her life was darkness?

I followed my family’s trail in the dark forest, found them about six miles north past the garage, and leaped across the Sol Duc to join them on the other side of the riverbank. Jasper sat on the log of a young felled spruce, Emmett right next to him with his arm around our brother. Esme stood with Rosalie just a few feet away.

Esme broke the silence first. “How is Bella? Is she all right?”

“Yes,” I said, unable to keep the flatness out of my voice. I sat next to my brothers on the log. “Carlisle is with her in the kitchen stitching up her wounds. She didn’t want to go to the hospital.”

The wind blew and rustled the trees around us as Esme addressed me in her thoughts, trying to be reassuring. _Oh, Edward, dear. Don’t be upset. She’s fine. Nothing happened._ I nodded my head in acknowledgment, but I disagreed. This wasn’t _nothing_.

“Edward, I can’t begin to say how sorry I am,” Jasper said, but I shook my head at him.

“Don’t apologize, Jasper. This is not your fault. You can’t hold yourself accountable for any of it,” I said. Every word I spoke was sincere. Jasper had nothing to do with this. The only person at fault for what happened tonight was me.

“It’s not _your_ fault, either.” He looked at me with black eyes, a dark edge in his voice.

I pretended to agree with him, but I knew he felt as well as I did the black eddies of grief and bitterness attempting to take hold of me. I didn’t need to be convinced of whose fault this was. I knew exactly where I had to direct my blame and anger, the reason why Bella almost died tonight. _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa._

The cold, empty forest allowed me to inhale clean gulps of air, and I detested the relief it brought me. I should have been with Bella, holding her hand and telling her she would be all right, instead of standing around useless out in the forest because I couldn’t be trusted not to kill her if I lingered around the scent of her blood any longer. If she were with someone normal, someone human, finding bandages for her papercut would have been the end of it. No ravenous vampires, no crashing into tables, no blood soaking into the carpet, no stitches….

Rosalie was attempting to disguise her thoughts from me by translating her old thesis about anomalies in the cosmic microwave background into Russian, but she wasn’t as practiced at that tactic as Alice was; I was still able to glean the true sense behind what she was thinking. “Why don’t you just spit it out, Rose, before you become the first vampire in history to suffer an aneurysm?”

Her eyes flashed with disbelief that I actually dared to confront her, but she hid it quickly to respond with the gloat she’d been holding back. She sneered at me and glared. “Haven’t I tried to say from the beginning how dangerous this girl is for our family? A human birthday party— _honestly!_ Of course it was a bad idea. _”_

“You’re a fount of wisdom as always, Rosalie—” I began, but she cut me off.

“And _you’re_ a selfish, arrogant, irresponsible moron!” She gave up on masking her thoughts then and let the insults loose, some of which included words none of us would dare use in front of Esme. I saw Emmett cover his face with both hands, resigned.

But I was saved from trying to come up with a gentlemanly retort, less visceral than the one I already had in mind, when Alice emerged out of the darkness. “Is Carlisle finished?” I asked, surprised. I stood up off the log so Alice could sit next to Jasper.

“No, Carlisle is still getting the glass out of her arm, but I needed to get out of there,” Alice said with a sniff. “By all means, don’t let me stop your bickering.” 

Rosalie only rolled her eyes at this, then informed us that she and Emmett were leaving for a run. Emmett said goodbye to me in his thoughts, and added, _Tell Bella happy birthday again. I hope she enjoys our gift._

Alice and Esme now sat together on the log, Jasper between them. I stood a short distance away from them, my mind wandering back to the past summer. During Bella’s recovery, I had constant physical evidence that I didn’t belong in her life, no matter how my feelings for her tried to convince me I did. Every grimace she tried to hide when she moved her torso in a way that agitated her healing ribs, or every sharp intake of breath she sucked in before she carefully set her foot on the ground, or every time she absentmindedly ran her fingers over the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist…. All of it reminded me I was supposed to have my guard up. I was supposed to wait until she was healthy…. And then it would be time for me to do the right thing.

But I was weak and selfish and stubborn, and my conviction fell away on the day Bella and I took a trip to Seattle after I had convinced her we needed to celebrate the occasion of her walking cast finally being removed. _Now that you can walk freely,_ I’d said in my most persuasive, agreeable voice, _I can take you book-shopping at last._ It was only a front for my real motivation: to give her more of those human experiences I did not want her to miss because of me. Her original plan for a trip to Seattle had been derailed because of my inability to be out in the sun. I knew she had been itching to be inside a proper bookstore since she’d moved to Forks, and I happened to know the perfect place. After Alice confirmed the weather would be safe, we embarked on our day trip on one early Saturday morning.

About one hour into the four-hour drive to our destination, right after we passed into Port Angeles, I heard Bella’s stomach growling, so softly that it would’ve been imperceptible to human ears. I asked her what she’d had for breakfast, and was unsatisfied when she told me she had only eaten a protein bar on her way out the door. Though she insisted that she was fine, I stopped the car at the next diner I saw.

“I thought the goal was to avoid traffic,” Bella grumbled as she followed me out of the car. “We really should keep going.”

“There’ll be traffic no matter what,” I reasoned. I reached the diner door first and held it open for her. “I’m not going to let you starve, Bella.”

Inside, the diner was aggressively retro—from the Formica-topped tables, the faded red leather of the stools and booths, the pastel blue walls, right down to the checkered floors. It didn’t look like anything had been changed there since 1953, the establishment date proudly displayed on a sign behind the long counter. Bella was grinning as she took in our surroundings, and I didn’t have to read her mind to know she appreciated the archaic decor. I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the smell of greasy human food that permeated the entire space, a smell that was probably forever embedded into the walls of this place. I chose one of the booths, and Bella looked like she was about to complain when I sat across from her instead of next to her. She settled for keeping our hands entwined on the table instead. A grumpy-looking, middle-aged waiter brought us a menu, and Bella smiled as she ordered scrambled eggs and coffee for her, and a water for me. The drinks arrived first. I watched as she grabbed two tiny packets from the little basket in the middle of the table—creamer and sugar, I realized.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you drink coffee,” I said, observing nonchalantly as she poured the contents of the little packets into the cup of dark brown liquid.

She smiled shyly. “I just have a really low caffeine tolerance. One cup in the morning is usually enough to make me stay up all night. But today, it’s fine….” She picked up a teaspoon f rom the napkin-wrapped set of silverware on the table and stirred slowly, watching the dark coffee turn a lighter shade of brown.

She held up the warm cup and took a long drink from it. Her long hair fell in slightly damp tangles down her shoulders, and her brow furrowed in mild concentration as she drank. My eyes lingered; I couldn’t help it—I could never help it. When she looked up, she caught me staring.

“What?” she asked, a little chuckle in her voice. Her brown eyes looked so bright despite the early, fog-filled morning, and her lips were curved into a smile.

I had no answer. I was always so disarmed and so undone by her. _She was healthy now,_ a voice inside my head whispered _,_ intruding on our peaceful morning. _What is the right thing now?_ It was no longer staying with her, I was sure of that. If I cared about her, if I loved her at all, I should have been honest with her and told her that I wasn’t good for her. I should have left her…. But for all my perfect inhumanity, I was still just a man.

I blinked, and Bella’s chuckle turned into a full laugh, bright and twinkling and—absolutely life-giving. She was still waiting for my answer. I must have looked like a fool sitting there silently, but all I could think was—not for the first time— _if I could die by anything, I would die by that laugh._ And the reality of the eternity I had to endure without hearing that joy from her almost crushed me right there, sitting across from her in a booth inside an ugly diner on a dreary Saturday morning. And I ignored it. I ignored it because there were _so many years_ to feel this pain. But not now. Not here. Not while she insisted on holding my hand, even though she had no gloves on and it must have been freezing for her. Not while I could reach over across the narrow table and brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Not while she smiled and laughed in my presence like a carefree child, like it wasn’t my fault she’d almost died last spring. I knew… I _knew_ there were so many years to feel this pain, but not now. Not today.

So I choked down my grief and my pain and tried to be present with her while I still could.

She wanted me, and that was all that mattered. For reasons I might never understand, even if I lived forever, I made her happy and she _wanted_ me. As long as she still wanted me, I could stay.

That was the decision I’d made that day. To stay for as long as she wanted me. To stay until she outgrew me. It was a decision that made me a coward in any and all objective estimation. I had been too weak to do the right thing, too selfish. I could not afford any cowardice now….

I was pulled out of my thoughts by the sudden trill of Alice’s voice cutting into the silent night like a knife. “Edward, what’s going on? What are you thinking?”

Parts of remembered visions, visions she’d just had, flashed across Alice’s mind as I tried to comprehend them. They were all blurred—nothing more than glimpses, really. Alice understood them better than I did. But there was enough to know that something was about to change. Someone was making a decision that would affect all of us.

I wondered if it was me causing the change. Alice seemed to feel that way. Stupidly, wretchedly, I wished it was Bella. Maybe this had finally made her hate me. Maybe she finally realized she was better off without me. My chest felt like it would crack at the thought.

Alice repeated her questions, but I ignored her. “I should go back to the house. I need to see if Bella is ready to go home.”

Esme looked confused at the glare Alice shot me, but she rose from the log and brushed off the seat of her dress. “I’ll go with you, Edward.” She thought about the mess in the living room and how best to clean it up. Alice stayed with Jasper while Esme and I ran back to the house.

When we arrived, I heard Carlisle’s voice, still in the dining room, although I couldn’t hear the sound of glass shards plinking into the little crystal bowl anymore. I smelled the lingering scent of burned gauze and alcohol. He must be done dressing Bella’s wound, then. They were only talking now. Carlisle was recounting the story of how he had come to the decision to change me almost ninety years ago.

Esme made her way to the small laundry room outside the kitchen to fetch the cleaning supplies. Anxious as I was to get back to Bella, I couldn’t leave my mother to clear up the disastrous remains of our unfortunate party by herself. I reached for the mop, but Esme waved me off. I went ahead of her to the living room and rolled up the bloodied carpet—the blood had dried; I didn’t have to hold my breath—and ran it down to the basement. It would have to be incinerated. When I went back up, Esme was already mopping the hardwood floors with pungent bleach. Esme’s perfectly finished floors were just another casualty of this wretched night. I asked her if I could help, but she waved me off again. _Go to Bella,_ she told me in her thoughts. _I can handle all this._

I walked slowly to the dining room and stopped outside the doorway. Carlisle was still in the middle of his story. “But Elizabeth was alert almost until the very end. Edward looks a great deal like her—she had that same strange bronze shade to her hair, and her eyes were exactly the same color green.”

“His eyes were green?” Bella asked in a whisper.

“Yes….” I saw the memories of a different world from a century ago inside Carlisle’s mind. By now, my own memories of my human life were dim and inexact, but I knew I was luckier than most. I could fill in some of the blanks in my memory from seeing Carlisle’s as he tried to nurse my family back to health. “Elizabeth worried obsessively over her son. She hurt her own chances of survival trying to nurse him from her sickbed. I expected that he would go first, he was so much worse off than she was. When the end came for her, it was very quick. It was just after sunset, and I’d arrived to relieve the doctors who’d been working all day. That was a hard time to pretend—there was so much work to be done, and I had no need of rest. How I hated to go back to my house, to hide in the dark and pretend to sleep while so many were dying.”

I could feel the anguish and the helplessness in Carlisle’s memories, leaking out into the way he spoke now. Almost ten thousand lives had been taken because of the influenza in Chicago alone. What would Bella’s life be like if I had died there ninety years ago, just as I was supposed to? It would afford her life more peace, I was certain of that.

Carlisle continued his story, detailing the way my dying mother had begged him to save me. I saw her face in his mind, ravaged by the fever, her green eyes with a knowing, manic look in them.

I remembered very little about my first mother, but there was one memory that stood out, imperfect and vague though it was. It was a few weeks still before the epidemic would reach Chicago, and we were in the music room of the house I’d been raised in—a house I still knew because I “inherited” it from myself every half generation or so. I had just finished learning how to play a piece from Debussy, whose death earlier that year had endeared his works to the public even more. Elizabeth clapped and smiled, and then she stood over me while I sat on the piano bench, and placed a kiss on my forehead. I didn’t remember if my human mother often expressed her affection in physical ways like that. I didn’t remember if my human father was there in the music room with us. But if the memory refused to fade, then it must be more significant than it was ever possible for me to know. It wasn’t unlike many moments I enjoyed with Esme, her presence always motherly and adoring whenever I played the piano.

The face of my human mother in that memory should have been perfectly healthy, framed by wavy, pinned-up bronze locks and adorned with a happy smile. But over the years her real face had faded, replaced by the one I saw in Carlisle’s memories, desperate and pleading for my life even as she was on the verge of death. It gave the memory an eerie, spectral quality; I didn’t care to revisit it often, let alone ever mention it to anyone.

Carlisle was nearly done with his tale. Though he was lost in the memory of a world long gone, I knew that he knew I was listening. “I wasn’t sorry, though. I’ve never been sorry that I saved Edward.”

Carlisle loved me—and all the rest of his children—more than I ever deserved. But I wasn’t sure—after last spring, after the events of tonight—whether I was still _grateful_ for what I was, for being the reason I could live long enough to find Bella. The danger to her had become too much. I’d never resented Carlisle for bringing me into this life. And even during the monotonous decades I’d endured, wholly unaware of the happiness that was waiting for me here, I hadn’t been as resentful as my sister, Rosalie. I never _truly_ understood her fixation on being human until I had a reason to want to be human, too, after I met Bella. I could tolerate what I was, but I still knew the world—and Bella especially—would be better off if the course of nature had prevailed almost a century ago.

“I suppose I should take you home now,” Carlisle told Bella, and I decided I should make my presence known.

“I’ll do that,” I said, walking slowly into the dining room.

“Carlisle can take me,” Bella said, then she looked at her shirt and realized it was ruined. The blue fabric was covered in her drying blood, and the smell of it combined with her actual presence made my throat burn anew. The right side of her body was covered in the pink, sticky-looking paste from her birthday cake.

“I’m fine,” I said flatly. Why was she still worrying about me, instead of berating me or telling me _‘I told you so’_? “You’ll need to change anyway. You’d give Charlie a heart attack the way you look. I’ll have Alice get you something.”

I walked out of the kitchen door again to run back into the forest and fetch Alice, but I only made it three miles out before she met me halfway. Jasper had apparently followed Emmett and Rosalie as they ran north to Vancouver, and Alice had promised to join them after Bella went home.

“Will you _please_ tell me what you’re thinking?” Alice begged in frustration. Then, in her mind, she added, _I can’t see your future right now. Or Bella’s. Even the rest of the family is harder to see… It’s very disorienting._

“How do you know it’s because of me?” I challenged, narrowing my strides a little to keep pace with Alice’s shorter legs.

I hadn’t made any decisions yet. I didn’t know why Alice’s visions were faltering the way they were. Again, my thoughts turned to Bella and what _she_ made of tonight’s events. Surely she would be afraid for her safety, surely she no longer wanted anything to do with me or my family. It was both my dream and my nightmare; a dream because it meant she was finally giving herself a moment’s thought, a nightmare because it meant I would have to lose her. It was agonizing even to contemplate… but if she decided to send me away, I knew I could find it in myself to endure it. At least she would no longer put her safety at risk for me, time and time again. From the beginning, I had told her… if leaving was the right thing to do, then hurting myself was the least of what I was willing to bear to keep her from being hurt. If she decided now that she no longer wanted me, then I would make myself welcome the agony. My pain for her safety was more than a fair price to pay.

Alice continued to glare at me until we got to the house. _Don’t do anything stupid_ , she thought towards me. I rolled my eyes. We entered the house together, and Alice immediately darted to Bella, leading her upstairs so they could find her a clean shirt to wear. I stayed downstairs to give Bella space, bracing myself for her reaction. Bella had a temper, but her real anger was rare. This situation certainly called for some wrath on her part. I shouldn’t have forced her to go through with this ridiculous party. I should’ve listened to her. If staying inside all night while watching _Romeo & Juliet _was her idea of a good birthday, then who was I to argue?

I headed to the front door to wait for Bella, avoiding looking in Alice’s mind while she was up there. Still, I overheard their conversation.

“How bad is it?” Bella whispered.

“I’m not sure yet,” Alice replied anxiously.

“How’s Jasper?” Bella asked again, still whispering.

“He’s very unhappy with himself,” Alice sighed. “It’s all so much more of a challenge for him, and he hates feeling weak.”

“It’s not his fault. You’ll tell him that I’m not mad at him, not at all, won’t you?” Bella said, almost a frantic edge in her voice.

My face hardened. I’d expected her to be angry. Heaven knew she had a right to be. But I made an effort to compose myself. She was right. It wasn’t Jasper’s fault, it was mine. If there was anyone for her to be angry with, anyone at all, it was me.

Bella descended the stairs, and I held the door open for her. Alice flitted into the living room and scooped up Bella’s presents and her camera from where they’d scattered after the… encounter. “Take your things! You can thank me later, when you’ve opened them.” She pressed the stuff into Bella’s unbandaged arm.

Esme and Carlisle wished Bella a quick goodnight. I heard their thoughts and knew how much they wanted to ask me whether I was all right, but both decided it wasn’t the time. I felt relief that they didn’t ask because I wasn’t sure of the answer yet myself. Bella walked through the open front door, and I shut it behind me.

Once we were outside, Bella was nearly running to her truck, but I matched her pace and said nothing. When I opened the passenger door for her, she got inside silently. I got into the driver’s side and saw her kicking the red ribbon from the brand-new stereo under her seat. I said nothing again and turned the key in the ignition, the truck rumbling to life. I pushed it as fast as it would go down the long tree-lined driveway.

I counted Bella’s slow breaths as she stayed silent beside me. _In, out… in, out…._ I could feel her gaze on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes. _In, out… in, out… in, out…._

“Say something,” she pleaded, finally breaking the silence as we reached the highway.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, trying to keep my composure under a mask of apathy. I wanted her to tell me that I needed to apologize. I wanted her to say that I needed to beg her for forgiveness. I knew I deserved it.

Her voice was grave when she responded. “Tell me you forgive me.” 

My head snapped up to meet her eyes for the first time since the horrendous affair. Was she _joking_? But her brown eyes were too earnest for this plea to be an ill-timed joke. I tried and failed to disguise the anger in my voice, but my ire was not for Bella; the only person I was truly unhappy with was myself. “Forgive _you_? For what?”

“If I’d been more careful, nothing would have happened,” she answered, dejected.

I almost scoffed, but I tamped down the urge. That would make her more upset. “Bella, you gave yourself a paper cut—that hardly deserves the death penalty.”

I couldn’t believe she was asking _me_ for forgiveness. She always surprised me, sometimes in ways that devastated and infuriated me. She was doing it to me again now.

“It’s still my fault.”

Four words. Four simple words, and yet so thoroughly wretched and devastating. How could she find a way to simply accept the blame for this, without regard for how _I_ had put her in danger again? I lost my control on the floodgates, and the truth had nothing to do except overflow.

“Your fault? If you’d cut yourself at Mike Newton’s house, with Jessica there and Angela and your other normal friends, the worst that could possibly have happened would be what? Maybe they couldn’t find you a bandage? If you’d tripped and knocked over a pile of glass plates on your own—without someone throwing you into them—even then, what’s the worst? You’d get blood on the seats when they drove you to the emergency room? Mike Newton could have held your hand while they stitched you up—and he wouldn’t be fighting the urge to kill you the whole time he was there.”

Even now in the confined space of the truck cabin, the scent of her overpowered my senses and set my throat ablaze. The thirst was second only to the hate and anger I felt towards myself. “Don’t try to take any of this on yourself, Bella. It will only make me more disgusted with myself.”

Finally, a flicker of anger from her. “How the hell did Mike Newton end up in this conversation?” she demanded indignantly.

“Mike Newton ended up in this conversation because Mike Newton would be a hell of a lot healthier for you to be with.” How could she not see how bad this was? She should be with someone who was normal, someone who could give her everything I couldn’t. Someone human.

“I’d rather die than be with Mike Newton. I’d rather die than be with anyone but you!” Her voice rose up a full octave, and she leaned forward in her seat defensively. I doubted she realized how loud she’d become.

I knew all too well how much she was willing to give up in order to be with me. It was unfortunate that her life—her soul—might be the exact asking price for what she wanted.

“Don’t be melodramatic, please,” I beseeched. I would do everything in my power to keep her comments just what they were, just fits of melodrama. Bella was not going to die for me. Bella was not going to give up her life because of me. I would never let it happen.

“Well then, don’t you be ridiculous,” she replied, voice calmer now but still with an air of indignation.

I didn’t answer her. Instead I focused my attention on the road in front of me, though I didn’t need to. The road back to Bella’s house was a familiar one. We had driven this same route a hundred times, often at twilight, when I would take her back after we spent the long summer days at my house or at our meadow. The same question that had plagued me in the summer after Carlisle had deemed Bella fully recovered was back, tormenting my mind again. _What is the right thing now?_ Was this the sign? If it was, could I bear it?

I was still pondering the answers to these heavy questions when we arrived in front of Bella’s house. I turned off the engine but made no move to get out.

“Will you stay tonight?” Bella asked.

“I should go home.” Though I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea of returning home, where Carlisle and Esme would worry and fuss over me. What I needed was to go on a run all night, to Seattle or even farther to Alaska, so I could contemplate the questions I’d posed to myself.

“For my birthday,” she insisted.

“You can’t have it both ways—either you want people to ignore your birthday or you don’t. One or the other.” I was trying to be stern, to convince her I should not stay the night, but it was hard to make a compelling case when the last thing I actually wanted was to be away from her.

“Okay. I’ve decided that I don’t want you to ignore my birthday. I’ll see you upstairs.” She jumped out of the car, then turned back to gather the gifts she never wanted in the first place.

“You don’t have to take those,” I said, frowning.

“I want them,” she responded unconvincingly.

“No, you don’t. Carlisle and Esme spent money on you.” During the summer Carlisle and Esme had quickly realized how much Bella missed her mother; she talked about Reneé with such loving, borderline-parental worry. So my parents had decided to buy Bella a voucher for plane tickets so she and I could go visit her mother in Florida. I’d warned them that she would hate such an expensive gift, but they didn’t listen.

“I’ll live,” Bella said stubbornly. She shoved the presents awkwardly into her unbandaged arm and shut the truck door behind her.

I followed her out and was at her side in a second. “Let me carry them, at least.” I took the presents out of her grasp. “I’ll be in your room.”

“Thanks,” she smiled, and I sighed. Her smile was the only thing that ever lightened my heart.

I leaned down to wish her a happy birthday, then touched my lips softly to hers. When I tried to break away from her, she stood on her tiptoes to make the kiss last a few seconds longer. I smiled despite myself, then turned away to walk towards the spruce tree that led to her bedroom window. I scaled the tree easily and was inside Bella’s room before she even walked inside the front door.

Downstairs I could hear that Charlie was still watching the game; I listened to the soft babble of voices from the television as Bella greeted her father. She recounted the night’s events to Charlie—a concise, edited recount, disguising her injury as the result of a minor accident born of her clumsiness.

I set Bella’s things down on the bed carefully, then sat in the center while I waited for her. I toyed with the silver-wrapped box that contained my parents’ gift, wondering if it had been wise to let them include me in the tickets. Perhaps it was better if Bella went to see her mother alone….

I heard her soft footsteps as she entered the room, refreshed and ready for bed in her nice pajamas.

“Hi,” I greeted, hoping my voice didn't betray my melancholy too much.

Bella approached the bed, shoved the presents aside, and climbed deftly onto my lap.

“Hi,” she said back, curling up into my hard chest. “Can I open my presents now?”

“Where did the enthusiasm come from?” I wondered. I thought she wanted nothing to do with the gifts, to continue pretending it wasn’t her birthday now that I’d been convinced to stay for the night.

“You made me curious.” With that, she took the wrapped box I’d been playing with and made a move to open it.

“Allow me,” I said gently, taking the gift out of her hand and tearing the silver wrapping paper off with quick precision. I handed the white box back to her.

“Are you sure I can handle lifting the lid?” she quipped, but I ignored her.

I watched as she read the piece of paper inside the box, and once she had absorbed the information on it, she looked thrilled. “We’re going to Jacksonville?”

“That’s the idea.”

“I can’t believe it. Reneé is going to flip! You don’t mind, though, do you? It’s sunny, you’ll have to stay inside all day.” I didn’t like that her excitement was immediately curtailed by worrying about me.

“I think I can handle it,” I assured her, then frowned as I thought of her enthusiastic reaction. “If I’d had any idea that you could respond to a gift this appropriately, I would have made you open it in front of Carlisle and Esme. I thought you’d complain.”

“Well, of course it’s too much. But I get to take you with me!”

I chuckled. Her happiness was infectious. “Now I wish I’d spent money on your present. I didn’t realize that you were capable of being reasonable.”

Bella set the gift from my parents aside then reached for the one from me and Alice. I took it and removed the wrapping on it for her like I’d done with the first one. There was no such thing as too much caution when it came to Bella.

I placed the unwrapped jewel case in her hands and watched her perplexed expression as she stared at the CD. “What is it?”

I said nothing; instead I took the CD out of its case and reached towards the other side of the bed to fetch the CD player on her bedside table. I loaded it in and hit play.

I watched Bella’s face carefully as we listened to the music I’d recorded for her. Her eyes were wide, but she stayed silent. After a few seconds, tears were almost spilling out of her eyes, but she reached up and swiped at them before I could ask why she was crying.

“Does your arm hurt?” I asked helplessly. Maybe I needed to call Carlisle and ask if there was some anesthetic I could procure that would help her.

“No, it’s not my arm,” she promised. “It’s beautiful, Edward. You couldn’t have given me anything I would love more. I can’t believe it.”

“I didn’t think you would let me get a piano so I could play for you here,” I explained as we listened to the lullaby I’d written for her.

“You’re right,” she confirmed. I resisted the urge to sigh. The piano would’ve been hard to hide from Charlie, anyway. Unless we wanted him to find out that I was frequently here at all hours of the night, the CD was a good enough substitute. Though I wouldn’t cross any lines with Bella for a multitude of reasons, I suspected the Chief would be all too happy to use me as a moving shotgun target if he were made aware that I had spent even one night in Bella’s room, let alone the many nights I had been in here, watching and burning and listening.

“How does your arm feel?”

“Just fine,” she said, but Bella was still a bad liar.

“I’ll get you some Tylenol.”

“I don’t need anything,” she protested, but I took her off my lap, sat her on the bed, and headed for the door.

“Charlie,” she hissed in warning.

“He won’t catch me,” I promised her. I made no sound as I disappeared into the little bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet to take the bottle of painkillers and fetching a glass of water from the sink. I was back in Bella’s bedroom before a full second passed.

I shook two pills out of the bottle and handed them to Bella, along with the glass of water. She took the pills and washed them down with the water without argument. Her arm must have been hurting in earnest.

“It’s late,” I remarked. I lifted Bella off the bed with one arm and pulled the covers back with my free hand. I set her down with her head on the pillow and made sure the quilt was tucked tight around her, then I lay down next to her, over the blanket so I wouldn’t freeze her with my skin. I wrapped an arm around her, and she leaned her head on my shoulder, sighing contentedly.

“Thanks again,” Bella whispered.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered back. I was glad my gift had satisfied her. It seemed to me that, despite all my well intentions, I rarely did anything right. It was gratifying to see her so content even after tonight’s ordeal.

The lullaby was almost at its end, and the brief silence it left in its wake allowed me to fade into my own thoughts again. I knew it was foolish to wish for an easy answer to the dilemma that faced me now. If tonight was truly the sign I’d been waiting for, the sign I’d been dreading, then I would be wrong to ignore it. I didn’t know yet what my next course of action was, but I knew I had to do something more to protect Bella. If I were in the lead role of a bad movie, clearly this was the moment where a miniature angel and a miniature devil would materialize on my shoulders, arguing about right and wrong. The angel would advocate for whatever course ensured Bella’s safety, no matter the pain it brought to me or her. The devil would urge me to postpone any brewing decisions; he would tell me to ignore the wretched birthday party and put it behind us for good. After all, nothing had happened, the devil would reason. The angel, appalled and offended, would challenge, _What if something like it happens again?_ I distracted myself with the mental picture, forced myself to find the irony in it all, but it didn’t bring me any closer to a resolution.

As the song that was Esme’s favorite began, Bella asked in a whisper, “What are you thinking about?”

I hesitated for a moment before I decided to just be honest. “I was thinking about right and wrong, actually.”

A look—of alarm?—flashed across her face, but it vanished before I could ask. “Remember how I decided that I wanted you to _not_ ignore my birthday?” she asked, in one breath, as though she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. What was she up to?

“Yes,” I agreed warily.

“Well, I was thinking, since it’s still my birthday, that I’d like you to kiss me again.”

“You’re greedy tonight.”

“Yes, I am—but please, don’t do anything you don’t want to do,” she added.

I laughed, unable to keep it from bubbling out of my chest. Then I sighed. “Heaven forbid that I should do anything I don’t want to do,” I said, not even attempting to disguise the desperation in my tone as I placed a hand on her chin so I could pull her face towards mine.

We began our kiss as softly and carefully as always, and Bella’s heart started speeding away like a hummingbird’s, as it always did. And then, as though pushed by some invisible force, I let the kiss become more urgent and more desperate; my free hand twisted into the curls of her hair and secured her face to mine. In response, Bella let her hands tangle into my hair, too, pulling at the strands. On any other night, my carefully drawn lines would not allow us to be joined like this. On any other night, I would have stepped back long before Bella could crush her body against mine. But this was not any other night. I didn’t need to see Alice’s visions to realize that change was brewing. I could smell it on the air as much as I could smell the sweet scent of Bella’s blood.

As soon as I thought the words, I had to break away from her. Thinking of her blood while her entire form and her lips were pressed against me simply became too much to bear. I pushed her away gently but firmly, and she fell back onto her pillow with a loud gasp.

“Sorry,” I said, just as breathless. “That was out of line.”

“ _I_ don’t mind,” she said, still panting.

I frowned. It would be so easy for me to make just one wrong move. One wrong move that would be the end of everything. “Try to sleep, Bella.”

“No, I want you to kiss me again,” she said adamantly.

“You’re overestimating my self-control.”

“Which is tempting you more, my blood or my body?” she asked, challenging me.

“It’s a tie,” I replied quickly, then grinned despite myself. Nothing in the entire world could be more tempting than this fragile human girl I loved beyond measure. “Now, why don’t you stop pushing your luck and go to sleep?”

“Fine,” she finally agreed, pressing herself closer to me. I was still above the quilt so I wouldn’t give her a chill. Her breathing evened out only a few seconds later, falling into what I hoped was a restful sleep. When I gauged that her slumber was deep enough that I wouldn’t wake her if I left the bed, I moved silently to the old rocking chair in the corner of the room, away from Bella so I wouldn’t disturb her when she began to toss.

Across the room I spotted Bella’s copy of _Jane Eyre_ , sitting on her messy desk, a pen lodged between the pages to mark her place. It was one of the books Bella had bought on our outing to Seattle. Though she said she’d read it more than once before, using copies from the library, she wanted to have her own. With soundless footsteps I approached the desk, curious to find any insight into her thoughts and why she was reading the book again. A portion of a paragraph on the bookmarked page stood out to me because it had been underlined, a little haphazardly, in blue pen ink:

 _I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at m_ _e._

This part that she highlighted was only a clue to her innermost thoughts. Even after all these months, it was still hard for me to try and discover her mind using only little clues like these. But I gleaned the significance of the underlined passage easily enough. I had never intended to fall for her, either, and in those months after the accident when she ignored me and I pretended to ignore her, she had made me love her without any effort.

I’d seen enough of the book; I made my way back to the rocking chair and watched Bella’s peaceful sleeping form from there.

 _Jane Eyre_ was only one of the books Bella had acquired on our Seattle trip—she also bought a hardcover of _Anne of Green Gables_ , as the copy she had had since childhood was coming apart at the seams. Then _Rebecca_ , which she’d never read, plus a few more classics that were on this year’s English curriculum. The only relatively new book she included in the haul was something called _The Secret Histo_ _ry_ , published only about ten years back, which I had not yet read. She assured me I was allowed to borrow it as we stood in line at the counter. When I tried to hand the young girl manning the register my card, Bella tried to shove me out of the way with her hip, her arms full of books. The other half of the pile was tucked under my arm.

“Bella!” I hissed. “You said you would let me give you any books you chose today as a gift.”

“I said no such thing!” she shot back quickly, offended that I would accuse her of reneging on a deal. She grinned at me. “All I said was ‘Why, yes, Edward, to celebrate my full recovery, of course you can give me a ride to the bookstore for free.’”

That was most certainly _not_ how I remembered that conversation. She was being ridiculous, and we were holding up the line. I sighed, knowing it was a losing battle. The young girl at the counter looked amused at our argument. Of course Bella had her way, muttering something about self-respecting bookworms who paid for their own books. I wanted to argue again, to ask her what kind of book lover would refuse free books.

Her adamance pulled my guard down, and as I carried the books back to the Volvo, I was unable to stop my errant thoughts… _in the future, maybe she wouldn’t be so against receiving gifts from me. In the future, I could surprise her with things—both little and big—that would make her happy. In the future…_

The future. Despite the joy of the day, those two words I hadn’t been able to stop myself from thinking dampened my mood. Bella likely assumed it was because I had lost the fight inside the store, but that no longer mattered. Bigger, more disquieting worries made themselves known. Who knew how long I had before she realized I wasn’t good for her? Before she outgrew me, my world, and all the chaos that came with it?

I placed Bella’s books in the backseat and opened the passenger door for her in the same movement. When I got in beside her, she said, “I need you to promise me something.”

 _Anything_ , I almost whispered. An automatic reaction. But I kept my lips set in a thin line and waited for her request.

“Can you keep your eyes on the road? Don’t do that thing where you watch me instead of the road, please.” She smiled a little, and I sighed and nodded. Driving slow and paying attention to the road would be a boring test of my patience, but it was a small sacrifice that would give her peace of mind.

As we left Seattle behind us, the sun peeked out of the clouds for the first time that day and bathed the city in a cheerful, end-of-day shimmer. The dark-tinted windows of the car protected me from the faint sunlight. Bella sat contentedly in silence beside me, fiddling with the radio as she tried to find a station she liked, while I burned in the driver’s seat, trying not to think of the day in the near future when she realized she had outgrown me.

When she got tired of playing with the radio, Bella reached into the backseat to fetch a book to read. _Jane Eyre._ She smiled at me as she flipped it open, and I worried whether she would become dizzy if she read while in a moving vehicle. When I asked her as much, she only shook her head and told me to honor my promise about keeping my eyes on the road. I rolled my eyes; she was so stubborn. But I let her disappear into her book and slowed the car down even more, perhaps a futile attempt at preventing motion sickness on her part, since she insisted on reading.

Not even a half hour had passed before the sniffling began. Bella swiped her fingers across her cheeks to wipe a few tears away, then she laughed at herself. “Jane and Helen saying goodnight to each other always breaks me down.”

I smiled at Bella and offered a hand to her in comfort. I was relieved her tears were because of the story she was immersed in and not due to any real distress. Bella felt everything with a great deal of intensity. The thought propelled me back into a memory; last spring, in the hospital, when her mother had talked to me. Ordered me, really. _Be gentle with my baby. She feels things very deeply._

And I’d responded with the promise that I would never do anything to hurt Bella. Even then, I wasn’t confident that I was speaking the truth. And now those words were a full-blooded lie. Just another promise I was being forced to break. Just another wrongdoing I would spend the rest of my eternity trying to atone for.

I was dragged back to Bella’s room when she shifted on her side in the bed but didn’t wake up. Back in the present, the imaginary angel and the imaginary devil on either side of my shoulders still waited for my decision.

Rationally speaking, I already knew that tonight was the sign I had been dreading since the night I’d desperately prayed for the strength I would need in order to protect Bella from myself. The sign that told me I needed to leave her and let her live a normal life without me.

It felt like my heart was ripping in half. Like I was suddenly made of paper instead of hard stone. If only there were a way for me to change for her, to somehow reverse the powers of the venom in my veins. So I could become human again. Where was _my_ cure? Where was _my_ absolution? It was heart-shattering to know the best solution was also the most impossible one. There was no way to revert back to my humanity, no matter how hard I begged the skies for it. I would always be this, frozen and only half-alive.

Bella needed someone who could grow and change with her. I could never give her that. And if I stayed here… if _we_ stayed here… I knew there was only so long before she would become tired of me refusing her wishes, and she would go and find someone else who would change her, regardless of my objections. In the car tonight, Bella had mentioned Alice… I’d reacted so poorly only because my oft-overbearing sister, as much as she cared for me, I knew she loved Bella, too. And Alice wouldn’t care if I was angry with her for a thousand years, not if it meant Bella was with us.

I was also afraid of the other Bella that Alice had shown me. The sunless Bella, thinner than she was now with hollow cheekbones and deep circles underneath her eyes, expression always blank and lifeless. Alice had said she looked like that because I left her, but what if that was also what Bella would become if I stayed here, breaking her heart every time I told her I could never let her become like me ?

But even more than that, I was afraid of stopping her heart. The gravity of Bella’s near-death tonight nagged at my conscience and gripped my heart like a vice. I thought my own thirst for Bella’s blood was the greatest obstacle we would have to face. I thought we were past the days of her life being endangered because of my world.

There was too much I could not protect her from. Instead of waiting until she grew to resent me for not changing her, or waiting for another close call that I would have no power to prevent, I knew that I needed to write myself out of her narrative.

The angel sighed, acknowledging that the victory was bittersweet, while the devil seethed and sulked.

But there were no loopholes I could talk myself into this time. No more excuses. No more weakness. I knew what the right thing was. I had always known.

The cellular phone I kept in my pocket started vibrating, and I didn’t have to be a betting man to know that it was Alice calling. I didn’t bother answering. I knew that by now, she had seen my decision, and I knew she would try to talk me out of it. She was probably furious, too, but I didn’t want to deal with my sister’s anger while I was with Bella. Not when I had so little time left with her. I pressed the end button and placed the phone back into my pocket.

Still in the rocking chair, I watched Bella as she slept deeply, tossing and turning every few minutes. Then her soft voice pierced the quiet night, as clear as though she had been awake. “Edward… Stay. Please. Don’t go, Edward….”

I gripped the arm of the rocking chair as though it could prevent me from collapsing, nearly tearing it clean off. The words were the same ones she’d mumbled the first night I had come here to her room. The night I had been changed forever, bound to everything that she was. But her dream tonight sounded different than the one on that night. Her voice had a desperate edge to it that I couldn’t explain. If I didn’t know better, I would have wondered if she could read my mind.

“ _Please._ Stay...” she repeated, even more distressed now.

It took every ounce of strength inside my broken, dead heart not to disturb her troubled dreams and tell her that I wanted nothing more than to stay with her here forever. I stood up from the chair and approached her bed, kneeling down on the floor so I could be close to her, wishing I had more comfort to offer.

“Goodnight, Bella,” I whispered into the darkness. I brushed a lock of her hair away from her face and tried to smooth out the _v_ between her brows. 

She would never know how sorry I was. She would never know how much I loved her.

I let the tsunami waves of anguish drag me under until the sun had risen behind the clouds, wishing in vain that I didn’t have to face the new day. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you feel like discussing come over and join me on tumblr! I'm there as midnightsvns.


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